Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya on Thursday took part in a special sortie alongside the regular crew on a LCA (light combat aircraft) Tejas aircraft during the Aero India show in the city. Surya flew onboard the LCA Tejas for 30 minutes and later expressed his gratitude to the Narendra Modi government for promoting indigenous manufacturing in defence. Photos and videos of the MP posing by the aircraft and sitting in the cockpit were shared by many of his supporters across social media platforms. Thursday was the second day of the three-day Aero India event, which is being held in Bengaluru following COVID-19 guidelines.
A statement from the MP’s office said that the sortie was to celebrate the Rs 48,000 crore-contract won by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) from the Union government, to manufacture 83 indigenously-developed Tejas aircrafts for the Indian Air Force.
“The sortie congratulated the Union government for its recent procurement order worth Rs 48,000 crore from Bengaluru-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). This order will give a significant boost to the Bengaluru Aerospace and defence sector. With the right blend of technology and production capability, Bengaluru is poised to be on the world stage in the aerospace and defence sector,” the MP’s office said in a statement.
Sharing more pictures onboard the Tejas aircraft.#CelebrateLCATejas pic.twitter.com/UBMfbFySSb
— Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) February 4, 2021
As earlier reported, the supply will consist of 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircrafts and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircrafts. The LCA Mk-1A variant is an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured state-of-the-art modern 4+ generation fighter aircraft. It will be equipped with critical operational capabilities of Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Missile, Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite and Air to Air Refuelling (AAR).
Speaking on this development, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had recently said that Tejas is going to be the “backbone” of the fighter fleet of the Indian Air Force in the years to come.